


Birdsong

by My_Beating_Hart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 16:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Beating_Hart/pseuds/My_Beating_Hart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if birdsong was the most dangerous thing in the forest?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birdsong

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short original work I wrote a few years ago and thought I'd lost for good. So, I've decided to type it up and post it on here for posterity.

How was he to know that he’d been trespassing? Couldn’t they have been more polite about it? They could have asked him to leave rather than hounding him, surely?

They were literally hounding him though; giving chase as he ran for his life.

It was all he could do to keep running, dodging around the red-brown trunks. Apart from footsteps - his own and those of the five or six chasing him - and his panicked, heavy breathing, the forest was as still as death. That should have been his first clue that they were watching him blunder about, disturbing their hunt or getting too close to where they must have been camped. No birds would sing when they were near.

Eventually he became aware of the noise behind him fading. Were they falling back? Had they felt they’d chased him far enough to not be considered a threat or a meal any more? He slowed to a cautious walk, looking around constantly for any sign of them. He knew there was little chance he would see them, even if they were still watching and following. They were good at that, going unnoticed, staying silent, until it was too late.That was how he’d known he was just being warned - he’d seen them out in the open, staring at him, and then wisely he’d decided to go back the way he’d came as quickly as he could.

He was still lost in this stupid forest.

He came to a small clearing made by a fallen tree that had toppled years ago and was barely held up by another tree. He sat down with his back against the slanted trunk near the exposed roots and churned earth to get his breath back. Again he noticed how quiet the forest around him was, the towering trunks creaking to themselves high overhead in a breeze that stole through their branches. Abruptly to his left, so loud in the stillness that it made him jump, a bird began to sing up in the branches. At least that was a sign they’d definitely stopped following him.

He began to relax as gradually more birds joined in from the outskirts of the clearing, a soothing babble of overlapping calls - two jays fighting loudly, the territorial call of a lark, the shrill cry of a wren, and others he didn’t know. He closed his eyes, basking in the birdsong and knowing he was safe again. There was another call from somewhere much closer than the high branches above, perhaps even on the crown of the fallen tree he was rested against.

He opened his eyes and looked up and over, expecting to see a small bird. Instead, he saw two piercing eyes, a hunched form balanced expertly on the slender branches above him. Bare toes and a free hand gripped tightly onto the brittle wood, and a curved stone knife was held in the other hand. The thin lips parted, showing a row of sharp teeth, and again came the high, lilting bird call.

It wasn’t birds that were singing.


End file.
